Auschwitz, The city of Auschwitz, Poland, located in southwestern Poland, was the
site of one of the largest of the Nazi extermination camps. The camp was expanded in
August, 1942. Camp II was named Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Babi Yar, A deep ravine outsize the Ukrainian city of Kiev, on the Dnieper River
where the Einsatzgruppen killed and buried 34,000 Jews in one or two days (September
29-30, 1941).

Belzek, Death Camp located in the Lublin District of Poland. More than 600,000 Jews
were gassed at Belzek between 1941 and 1943.

Blitzkrieg, "lightning war," used to describe the speed, efficiency and
intensity of Germany's military attack against their opponents.

Buchenwald, concentration camp established in 1937 between Frankfurt and Leipzig in
Germany. While it was not a major extermination center, it was equipped with gas chambers
and crematoria. More than 100,000 prisoners died there.

Bund, a socialist movement among Jews in the Pale of Settlement in western Russia
in the late 1800's. The Bundists supported Jewish linguistic and political autonomy. Their
nationalism was cultural rather than territorial and, thus, they were at odds with much of
the Zionist movement.

Capo, Jews who worked inside the death camps. Their tasks including transporting
victims of gassing to the ovens, cleaning the gas chambers of human excrement and blood,
removal of gold from the teeth of the victims, shaving the heads of those going to the gas
chambers.

Chelmo, generally thought to be the first of the six death camps in Poland to
become operational. At the beginning, the camp was under the direction of SS Major,
Christian Wirth, formerly administrative head of the Euthanasie Programme. Located in the
Wartheland. Between December 1941 and fall 1942 and again from May until August 1944
gassings by means of carbon monoxide from motor exhaust gas took place. Altogether more
than 150,000 Jews as well as 5000 gypsies died at Chelmo.

Concentration Camp, Any internment camp for holding "enemies of the Third
Reich." The construction of concentration camps began almost immediately after Hitler
gained power in Germany. There were several kinds: labor camps, prison camps and death
camps.

Dachau,a concentration camp located in Upper Bavaria, northeast of Munich. In 1942
a gas chamber was established at in connection with the medical experiments of the chief
company commander of SS Dr. Rascher also a few experimental gassings were undertaken.

Death Camps, or Killing Centers, a concentration camp the distinct purpose of which
was the extermination of its inmates. Almost all of the German death camps were located in
Poland: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzek, Chelmo, Madjanek, Sobibor, Treblinka.

Death Marches, At the end of the war when it became obvious that the German army
was trapped between the Soviets to the east and the advancing Allied troops from the west,
the Nazis, in an attempt to prevent the liberation of camp inmates, forced them to march
westward. Thousands died in these marches.

Deportation, the removal of people from their areas of residency for purposes of
resettlement elsewhere. With regard to the Jews of Europe, deportation meant removal
either to a ghetto or a concentration camp in preparation for yet another removal to an
extermination center.

Einsatzgruppen, Mobile killing units ("task groups") under the command of
Reinhard Heydrich which accompanied German Troops when they invaded Russia. Their task was
to dispose of, liquidate, undesirables who posed a threat to the Reich.

Final Solution, Euphemism for the extermination of European Jewry.

fuhrerprinzip, See "leadership Principle."

General Government The Nazi-ruled state in central and eastern Poland. Headed by
Governor Hans Frank.

Genocide, the systematic annihilation of a whole people or nation.

German Military Rank Provided by Richard Breitman in The Architect of Genocide:
Himmler and the Final Solution. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991

General
Lt. General
Major General
Brigadier General
between Brigadier & Colonel
Colonel
Lt. Colonel
Major
Captain
1st. Lieutenant
Corporal
Private, First Class
Private
No equivalent in U.S. military

Gestapo, the German internal security police - secret police. The Gestapo was
organized in 1933 to protect the regime from political opposition. Under Himmler's command
after 1936.

Ghetto, a Yiddish word referring to a walled section of a city in which Jews were
required to live during the Middle Ages. The concept was revived by the Nazi regime as
part of the Final Solution to the Jewish Question.

Holocaust, a Hebrew word (olah) meaning "burnt offering. In the
Septuagint version (translated Hebrew Bible into Greek during the reign of Ptolemy II, 3rd
century B.C.), the word, olah, is consistently translated by the Greek word, holokauston,
"an offering consumed by fire."

Juden, The German word for Jew.

Judenrat, Jewish community authority, appointed by the Nazis for administration
within the ghetto.

Kristallnacht, "Night of broken glass," November 9, 1938, pogrom against
German Jews, Jewish businesses and synagogues orchestrated by the Gestapo in retaliation
for the assassination of a minor German embassy official in Paris by a 17 year-old Jewish
youth named Herchel Grynzspan. 7,500 businesses and 101 synagogues were destroyed, almost
100 Jews were killed and several thousand were arrested and sent to concentration camps.
The beginning of the Holocaust.

Leadership Principle, Ger. fuhrerprinzip, the ideological and administrative
principle established by Hitler early in his rise to power of one vital party controlled
by one, and only one, leader to whom all subjects owed absolute and unquestioning
obedience.

Lebensraum, one of Hitler's motivations for invading Poland and, later, the
Soviet Union, was to acquire lebensraum, or additional "living space," to
be colonized by German people.

Madagascar Plan, in 1940, before the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Nazis
seriously considered moving all Jews under their authority to the island of Madagascar, a
French possession off the east coast of Africa.

Majdanek, located in the Lublin district, general government of Poland. The
concentration camp existing since September 1941 turned into an extermination camp when
between April 1942 and November 1943 mass shootings took place to which 24,000 Jews fell
victim. In October 1942 also two, later three gas chambers were built. In the beginning
the killings in these were done by means of carbon monoxide. Later Zyclon B was
implemented. Up until the dissolution of the camp in March 1944 about 50,000 Jews have
been gassed. The camp was closed in 1944 after a major inmate riot occurred and several
inmates escaped.

Nazi, National Socialist German Workers' Party - the political party which emerged
in Munich after World War I. The party was taken over by Adolph Hitler in the early
1920's. He created the SA (Storm Troopers, also known as "Brownshirts") in 1921
and chose the swastika as the party's symbol.

Nuremberg, a city in Germany where the Reichstag met in September, 1935 to
promulgate the Nuremberg Laws. A decade later, an International Military Tribunal convened
there to hold trials of Nazis accused of War Crimes in connection with the Holocaust.

Operation Barbarossa, the military code name for Nazi Germany's invasion of the
Soviet Union. The invasion began in June, 1941.

Operation Reinhard, the code name for the entire process of building extermination
camps, deportation of Jews first to ghettos, then to the camps for extermination and
incineration. The Operation was named for Rinehard Heydrich.

Pink Triangle The Nazi concentration camps developed a system of badges to be worn
by inmates depending on why they were imprisoned. Those convicted of sexual deviance,
primarily homosexuality, were required to wear a pink triangle. Jews were required to wear
the yellow Star of David. Purple designated Jehovah's Witnesses, red for political
criminals, black for asocials, including the Roma, and green for criminals.

Pogrom, A Russian word meaning devastation used to describe an organized,
systematic discriminatory action against Jews.

Reichstag, the German Parliament under the Weimar Constitution. It was purely
ornamental during Hitler's dictatorship.

SD, Sicherheitsdienst - The SS Security Service Sonderkommandos.

SS, originally Hitler's elite guard. Under Himmler's leadership, the SS was in
charge of the death camps.

Shoah, a Hebrew word meaning "Desolation." Shoah has come to be the
preferred term for the Holocaust by Jewish scholars who feel that "Holocaust"
has lost much of its significance through overuse.

Sobibor, located in the Lublin District, general government where at least 200,000
Jews were murdered through carbon monoxide gas.

Third Reich, Nazi Germany from the end of the Weimar Republic to the end of World
War II.

Treblinka, located in the Warschau District of the general government in eastern
Poland. From the end of July, 1942 on, Treblinka had three gas chambers and at the
beginning of September, 1942, installed ten larger gas chambers. Up to the dissolution of
the camp in November 1943 altogether 700,000 Jews were killed there by carbon monoxide.

Vichy, France, after the Nazis conquered France, a puppet government was set up
here.

Wannsee (Conference, a conference held on January 20, 1942 beside Lake Wannsee in
Berlin. At this conference it was decided and made official Nazi policy that the total
annihilation of European Jews was the only rational means of a "Final Solution"
to the Jewish Question.

Yad Vashem, a museum in Jerusalem dedicated to the memory of Holocaust victims. The
name of the Museum is taken from an Old Testament passage in Isaiah: "I will build
for them a name and a memorial." (Isiah 56:5).

Zionism, The fervent desire of Jews of the Diaspora to return to their
ancestral homeland of Palestine. This ideal is at least 2,500 years old, dating to the
Babylonian Captivity. Its first statement is found in Psalm 137:1, "By the waters of
Babylon, there we sat down and wept as we remembered Zion." Political Zionism which
emerged in the 19th century and ultimately resulted in the creation of the modern state of
Israel in 1948 is an outgrowth of spiritual Zionism.

Zyklon B, hydrogen cyanide, a poisonous gas originally developed as a fumigation
agent to remove pesticides. In October, 1941, it was used experimentally on Soviet
prisoners of war. The success of these experiments had devastating consequences for
millions of Jews who were gassed in the Nazi death camps.